Windsurfers, which are also known as sailboards, have become popular in recent years. A windsurfer usually consists of a board or hull, a mast, a sail and a boom. In its most prevalent form, the boom is made up of a generally elliptical assembly of two symmetrically curved booms which are joined at their ends. The sail is fitted between the booms, so that it can transmit wind force onto one of the curved booms, depending upon the orientation of the windsurfer relative to wind direction. The wind force is transmitted from the elliptical boom assembly to the mast, which is secured to the boom assembly by some form of connection. Such connection are commonly effected by lashing the boom to the mast with a rope. However, the different lashing arrangements which are used to connect the boom to the mast were often difficult to master by the beginner. Also, the rope connections do not distribute the pressure onto the mast well, and, as a result, can often lead to breakage of the mast. The difficulty in properly adjusting the rope connections exasperates the breakage problem. To ensure no breakage, the user is often forced to settle for a connection that is too loose, resulting in slippage of the rope connection vertically with respect to the mast during ordinary operation. Moreover, the rope connections do not provide a stable connection and allow a relatively large amount of play (i.e., vertical displacement of the booms relative to the mast even when the rope connection itself does not slip) between the boom and the mast during operation of the windsurfer. Because such play must be absorbed before the windsurfer can respond to tacking, the maneuverability of prior art windsurfers is somewhat impeded.
Mechanical connections for joining a boom to the mast have been proposed, but they share the common disadvantage of being unduly complex and difficult to manufacture. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,546,720 to Dumortier utilizes a V-shaped mechanical element for engaging a windsurfer mast. The V-shaped element is pivotally mounted with respect to a wishbone-shaped element which engages the two booms. While this type of arrangement was less complicated and simpler to set up than the above-described rope connections, the pivot joint made it relatively expensive and susceptible to wear and other stress-related damage during normal operation of the windsurfer.
Moreover, a substantial amount of force is often applied by an operator downwardly onto one of the curved boom members during sailing. While rope-type connections absorbed this force to some extent, the mechanical connectors known to date had the tendency to transmit the force directly to the mast, which often resulted in displacement of the connector relative to the mast and occasionally damage to the mast.
It is clear that there has existed a long and unfilled need in the prior art for a mechanical boom-mast connector that is simple to use, that provides maximum control under the most severe wind conditions, that does not involve moving parts which are more susceptible to wear and other stress-related damage during normal operation, and that is inexpensive to manufacture and that provides a secure, non-damaging grip between the boom and the mast, regardless of the types of forces which are transmitted therebetween during sailing.